We meet a lot of cool people in our awesome sport—and sometimes I just imagine that I do.
True(ish) story: A good friend and fishing buddy, who I’ll call “Fideo” here to protect his identity, recently met the one and only legendary outdoorsman, innovative rock climber, munificent philanthropist, and founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard. I’ll bet you’re probably wearing some of his gear right now.
They met while deplaning in Jackson, Wyoming. And while my buddy has some elite-level airline loyalty status that grants him priority boarding and upgrades to those plush front-of-the-plane seats where you would figure Mr. Chouinard would also fly, they met while ducking the overhead bin noggin-bonkers back behind the curtain of exclusivity after getting out of their coach seats. Flying economy is totally on brand if you (now) know Yvon.
So here are two world-class guys, about to meet each other during the bustle of deplaning. Oh, my pal Fideo is himself very modest about his own accomplishments and, dare I say, celebrity (thus the assumed name here), so I won’t go into why I would fight anyone who disagrees with me saying he’s world-class. Just know that he is, I will, and that guys of his station run in circles with other world-class people—and sometimes a fly-fishing blogger if they’re not careful.
So Fideo recognizes Yvon because he was, coincidentally at the time, reading his book “Let My People Go Surfing.” Unsure whether he should approach, he shushed the voice that told him not to impose on Mr. Chouinard and took advantage of the celestial fate that smooshed them together in an airplane aisle’s personal space constrictor. His opening line? “Pardon me, but has anyone ever told you that you bear a striking resemblance to Yvon Chouinard…?”
Yvon turns to him and replies, “I’ve heard that before,” with a wry glint in his eye that said both “I’m not offended by your approach” and “I hope that will be the end of it.”
Fideo continued, though, with how he was currently reading his book and, my friend being the humble engaging person that he is, continued to carry a conversation with Mr. Chouinard while strolling with him up the jetway and through the terminal on the way to baggage claim.
At baggage claim, they were hostage to a motionless carousel devoid of their bags, so after Yvon’s wife approached and told him she was going to get the car, Yvon asked my friend what brought him to Jackson.
To which my intrepid friend replied that he was going fly fishing.
And that, my friends, is how this awesome sport brings us all together. Because then Yvon lit up and, after learning where my pal was going fishing, told him when to be there for the Trico hatch. Yvon Chouinard… gave my buddy… Trico hatch intel… in the Jackson airport baggage claim!
And now things get weird…
I share this delightful story with you not to name-drop that I suddenly find myself two degrees of separation from Yvon Chouinard (and one degree of separation from Fideo, too, I guess), but to reveal that I’ve long wanted to fly fish in Wyoming. Aaaannd that I have this bizarre fantasy of accidentally low-holing Yvon Chouinard while doing said fly fishing in Wyoming.
It all happens innocently enough. I’m fishing somewhere I’ve never been before, as I am wont to do. And I’m working my way upstream when I come up to a sharp bend in the river only to discover that I’m totally low-holing a couple of guys I didn’t see.
I hop out quickly and hustle up the bank to apologize. But as I draw closer, I recognize the man from whose video I learned how to tie a pheasant tail soft hackle: it’s Yvon Chouinard. Holy sweet Nano Puff bejeezus.
After some profuse apologies and their saintly grace in accepting my contrition, I ask which direction they’re fishing so I can avoid hole-hopping them even more.
“Please don’t say downstream… Please don’t say downstream…” my brain silently pleads.
“We’re heading downstream.”
They don’t ask how I did below them or what’s working—because they already know what’s working and I’m not about to tell them that I just cleaned house down there (hey, it’s my fantasy time now, too, right?).
I try not to disrupt any further, and I rush to bid them farewell. But in my haste and starstruck “gaw-gaw-gaw that’s Yvon Chouinard” awkwardness, what should’ve been, “Have a great day. Nice to meet you,” comes out as a garbled mish-mash that sounds more like, “Hasha are you? I speak to zebras.”
I catch Yvon as he stops and looks at me like maybe I’m having a stroke.
“What did you say…?” he asks me gently with what I interpret (and hope) to be mild concern in his voice.
“Sorry…” I say, then purposefully enunciate, “Have a great day. Nice to meet you.”
But then I pause, “Wait. What do you think I said…?”
To which Yvon laughs and bellows back, “I thought you asked if I was a Libra!”
And that is how I become Snapchat Friends with Yvon Chouinard!
* Google Gemini, response to “Create a picture of a fly fishing river in Wyoming with the Patagonia logo peeking out from behind the trees on the bend in the river,” May 27, 2026, https://google.com.
